A lot of pictures on this site were hosted on Photobucket before they disabled photo embedding. If you'd like to see pictures for a particular post, please let me know, and I'll prioritize getting those images fixed next!

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Okay, gang, due to popular request, I'll be offering castings of my skull sculpture. You can either get it in rigid foam or hollow resin.

Foam castings are not going to be as well detailed or perfect as the resin. So if you want it for display, go resin, if you're going to modify it or corpse it, save a buck and get the foam.

Resin skulls come white (pictured below painted), and foam is yellowish (pictured below unpainted). Both will need a bit of cleanup along the seams (a razor blade and a bit of light sandpaper will do the trick). The foam will need a coat of primer to paint, and the resin needs a very light sanding before acrylic paint will stick.

The skulls are in two parts (cranium and mandible), and measure approximately 5" from cheekbone to cheekbone, and 8" from chin to top of the head.

Resin for $55, Foam for $35. $50 and $30 without the mandible, respectively. $10 shipping in the US for one skull. Email me your zip code for shipping cost of more skulls.

Email me at ChickenHaunt@gmail.com with what you'd like to order, and I'll send you a Payapal request (so be sure to tell me if you use a different email on your Paypal account).

This is a temporary offer, as I do not intend to be making skulls all the time, haha. I'll update this post when it changes or ends.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Just finished sculpting this guy. Chavant NSP Medium clay. I used one of the Skull Shoppe's excellent models as a reference. Molding it next for what I hope will turn into a pretty cool project. Stay tuned!

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

With Halloween coming up fast, I thought I'd put together an easy to digest tutorial video on my corpsing techniques. It's a great way to quickly knock out some fun characters. Check it out. It's only 4 minutes, and you might get a useful idea or two!

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

You know what you need? Some Haunted Tombstone projection effects. Perfect last minute props, big bang for your buck. Yep. Oh, and they're on sale!

This month only (Oct. 2014), the entire Haunted Tombstone Collection (the original tombstone, the second taller tombstone, and the two together in one video frame) are available as a single download for only $50! That's like 60% off! Holy spooks!
Even if you have one or two already, this is waay cheaper than getting the rest individually. Get 'em while the gettin's good.

Check out the How To below if you haven't, and head over to ChickenProps.com to see more and get yours.

PLUS: did you know I have another effect out this year (besides Sybil the Clairvoyant, our resident disembodied medium, of course)? "Spooks!" is now available. A $25 loop of swirling green ghosts. See them in the background of the Sybil video:

Updates!Moving quickly on this guy to have him done before the weekend.

Once the mache (which DevilsChariot has been calling "Chicken Mache" haha) was dry enough, I started dry brushing. Drybrushing, washes, and rubouts are awesome for getting "free detail" in your paint jobs. I took a little of the base color, and mixed it with white and yellow to get the drybrush color. Actually, I did about three or four variants on that color to keep things from getting too much the same all over.

Now I'm going to turn you onto another cool trick. You can get this stuff called Polycrylic at Home Depot. I think it's for sealing wood, but it gives a nice clear satin finish to just about anything. Just makes things pop a little better than if they were matte. It's pricey at about $50/gal, but you hardly use any. If you don't stir it, it comes out glossy, which is kinda neat, too.

Someone asked about the eyes. I think it's a trick I got from Born2Haunt: http://www.born2haunt.com/Ledeyes01.htmlI believe these ones were a little plaster mold I made of a half ball of clay. Shoot in some hot glue (no need to fill it, just skin the surface. Bam. Eyeballs. I run the thing under cold water to speed up the glue cooling down.

I decided to paint the eyes. I had left them glue colored before because they have LEDs behind them, but they look kinda lame in the daylight like that. Turns out the light will still shine through a thin few layers of acrylic.

Then I glossed them. I did the teeth with an acrylic gloss, and it looked fine, but I really want the eyes to pop, so I used a couple coats of 5 minute epoxy. It doesn't show up so great in this picture, but I'll do a proper photoshoot later in the week.

So now we're at like 95% complete. I'm toying with the idea of giving him a little bit of costuming to go with the ToT bucket. We'll see...

Monday, September 29, 2014

It's been a while since I made a regular Halloween prop, since I haven't had a haunt of my own for a few years. I recently got an opportunity to make something, so I decided to go back to my roots with a goofy zombie. I used to do plenty of groundbreakers, but I never got to do a full figure zombie in my style, so that's this week's project.

I like to start with a sketch. I don't draw, but I can doodle!

The armature is in my traditional style-- 3/4" PVC, X coupler at the shoulders, T at the pelvis. All the other joints are posed simply with a heat gun. It makes for a cheaper structure that has fewer weak points. Perhaps most importantly, it allows for infinite flexibility in the pose, which I think is the most important part of a static character. This post by Pumpkinrot really sums it up for me.

And then I go for the skin. A few folks know how I do mummified corpse skin, but I don't think I've explained it publicly yet. It's basically just paper towels soaked in latex house paint. Lay it on, wrinkle it up. It dries super hard, depending on how much paint is on the towel, is basically waterproof, and gives you your base color

I do the majority while he's upright, so I can get all around

You'll notice the hands aren't attached when I begin corpsing. I find it's easier to do them when you can get all around, and since they're going to be all tangled up together, keeping them separate seemed the way to go.

Then I lay him on his back to do the stomach and neck. If I did these standing up, the paper towels wouldn't drape as nicely.

By the way, you probably noticed the head is already done. That was a little guy who peeped around the corner last year. I figured his expression was close enough that I could repurpose him to save some time. I actually rather liked doing it this way, though.

Friday, September 5, 2014

Before the Haunted Mansion as we know it, Imagineer Rolly Crump designed a "Museum of the Weird." Next Saturday, Sept. 13, Creature Features in Burbank is hosting the opening of their "Museum of the Weird" gallery show, with Rolly himself in attendence!

Stop by to see my Sybil the Clairvoyant conducting a seance, as well as my new recreation of Rolly's Coffin Clock maquette (seen in the foreground in the image at the top of the post). Pictures of mine are later in this post.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Chris and Jeff Davis of the Davis Graveyard, without doubt one of the most impressive home haunts around, have fallen on hard times. Both of them lost their jobs, one three years ago and one a few months ago. They've been searching hard for work but nothing has come their way as of yet, and now they're at risk of losing their home. I'll let you read Chris' post (here) for the details.

Fellow SoCal haunter Derek Young has put up a donations page on GoFundMe to give us all a way to show the Davises a little support. Chris and Jeff have certainly done more than their part to support the efforts of haunters everywhere, so if you've ever admired their photos, learned from their how tos, participated in the Home Haunter DVD Collection, please throw a few dollars their way to keep their haunt and lives on track.

If you don't know them, take a moment to click the links above. You'll be glad you did. Seriously, the Davis Graveyard rocks.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

The big news is still on the way, but in the meantime, you can now invite some of my favorite ghosts over to play with Spooks! A new projection effect offering.

I've had a few requests for a video featuring just the ghosts from the Sybil the Clairvoyant effect, either to populate the rest of the room, or to add a bit of ambiance to a graveyard scene. Here it is!

Stop by my booth at ScareLA to see it in action, or, for the impatient, download it right now for $25!

Friday, July 11, 2014

So, I glued the sculpture to an 18" tile to prepare for molding (typically people use melamine board, but I couldn't find any a reasonable size, and this was only a couple bucks). A gave it three coats of clear spray paint, and one pass of Ultra 4 Epoxy Parfilm, a release agent that is paintable, meaning it won't leave residue on the mold (and later, when I use it in the mold to release the castings, it won't leave residue on the castings, so I can paint on them without having to clean off an oily release).

Then I went in with silicone. The plan is to do enough silicone to cover the piece and fill in undercuts, then back that up with a rigid shell to hold its shape. This silicone is Mold Max 30 from Smooth On. It seems to be working pretty well, and it's a bit cheaper than the stuff that I usually use. Plus it's so pink and pretty! :P

That was the first layer, brushed on thin to get the surface details.

I went in with several more layers until all the undercuts of the sculpture were filled in. These layers I added a thixotropic agent to (Thi-vex, from Smooth On). This makes it more paste-like, so I can put on a thicker layer without it dripping so much. There are brushable silicones you can buy, but adding the "thixo" means I only have to buy one kind of silicone, and I can modify it to do different things. In total there are about 1.5 quarts of silicone on this.

You'll also notice some rectangles on there. I made those ahead of time and stuck them on to act as keys, so the silicone would register in the right spot in the hard shell later.

The shell is just two layers of burlap dipped in ultracal:

And when everything was set and cured, I demolded!

Into the mold, after a few passes of parfilm, I brushed a 2-part expanding rigid polyfoam. I only need enough to make the thing hold its shape, and the weight of the globe.

Once THAT set, I demolded to find a pretty darn good first casting.

A bit of gold, a bit of black, and a nice big acrylic globe on top, and there we go! Here's Sybil's new crystal ball home.

I might still give it a gloss coat...we'll see.

Now, you might be wondering why there's a big ugly hole in the middle of the base, when her head would fit perfectly right on the flat surface that I sculpted. I'm not telling. Not yet. But the reason is really cool, if I do say so myself. ;)